


Father to Father

by bettername2come



Series: Long Distance Phone Calls to Central City [16]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 07:46:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17762684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettername2come/pseuds/bettername2come
Summary: Oliver is not being paranoid and overprotective of his son. But if you happen to have superhero friends in the city you just sent your son to, it's not unreasonable to have them check on your child.





	Father to Father

It must have been the tenth time Oliver had called Barry that week, Barry thought as he looked at his phone debating whether or not to answer it. If he didn’t, of course Oliver would know that it wasn’t because he couldn’t get to the phone in time. And there was a fifty-fifty chance that not answering would just lead to Felicity hacking into their satellite and berating them over the STAR Labs comm system about not helping each other out. So, he answered.

“Hi, Oliver,” Barry said wearily.

“Hey, Barry,” Oliver said with false cheerfulness. “I was just wondering if you could – “

“Oliver, I did this for you twice yesterday.”

“Yeah, I know, I just – “

“Wouldn’t it be a lot better for you two to just FaceTime or something?” Barry asked.

“We could. We do, but – “

“You don’t him to put on an act for you, I know.”

“He doesn’t even have to know you’re there. You just run through the Claytons’ house real quick, check him out, see if he looks happy, check to make sure the place is meta villain proof. Even if he does see you, it’ll be fine. William loves The Flash,” Oliver said, just a little petulantly.

“Oliver, he knows you’re friends with The Flash, eventually he’s going to figure out why he’s seen The Flash more in the last month than he did in the year and a half he lived in Central City while The Flash was active before. And he’s not going to be happy you’re spying on him. You said he wanted a normal life. Getting spied on by superheroes because your dad requested it is not normal, even by our standards.”

“I just want to know, after everything he’s been through, that my child is safe and happy. That’s not too much to ask. You of all people should be able to understand that.”

Barry’s mind instantly turned to the image he had seen in Nora’s mind. The sad little girl version of his daughter that he’d never truly met, likely never would meet, if future history repeated itself. All he wanted to do was protect her from the pain she’d go through, make sure she was safe. And he knew that, like Oliver, at some point he would have to make a choice that would separate them just _to_ keep her safe.

Barry sighed. “Give me a second.” He held out his fist, summoning the Flash suit and dropping his phone in the process. He took off for the other side of town to the neat suburban home of the Claytons. He rushed through William’s room where the boy sat in front of his laptop, creating some kind of Felicity-level computer program that Barry couldn’t figure out from the nearly frozen image before him. Easier to see was the phone in William’s hand and the group chat with friends he’s reconnected with in Central City, and the smile on the William’s face as he read what Barry could only assume was some kind of inside joke as the message there made no sense whatsoever to him. He hurried back out, arriving at STAR Labs just in time to catch the cell phone before it reached the floor.

“He’s happy, Oliver,” Barry said. “He’s talking to his friends and working on his computer. Normal middle school boy things. Felicity’s security system is working just fine. He’s okay. He’s safe.”

Oliver sighed. “Okay. Good. I’m glad. Thanks, Barry.”

Barry almost said “any time” but thought better of it before he did. “I’ll keep an eye out for him. We all will.”

“I know. I know you will.” Oliver hung up without another word.

Nora walked in as her dad hung up the phone. “Oliver again?”

“Yep.”

“Do you think it would do any good if I told him thirty years from now, William’s a healthy, emotionally stable adult, even if he was occasionally a killjoy of a babysitter?”

“Considering that you’re standing right in front of me and I’m still worried about your future well-being, probably not.”

Nora shrugged. “Okay. Just saying. He’s definitely the most stable member of the Queen family.” She decided not to mention some of the other _less_ stable progeny that should have been coming into existence any day now.

Hours later, as William shut his laptop before heading to bed, he noticed the post-it stuck over the computer’s logo.

**William –**

**Call your dad. He misses you. Don’t tell him it was my idea.**

**-The Flash**


End file.
